Happy new Year !!!

I wish you all a happy new year, a succesful and windy 2009 !!!!

www christmas

preparing christmas food

wind, waves and work at Christmas made the last days pass by faster than we thought and we lived some pretty normal days without Christmas feeling but some nice windy days, some small waves and some work in the end to not get bored at all. Even with some raindrops we had lots of fun, finally the wind was back and pushed some waves onto El Yaque Beach. Maybe not perfect for the Venezuelan Sunburn tourists and the Beach itself, but after a longer waiting period we didn´t feel mercy at all :-)

windy christmas present....

maybe there is a christmas this year in el yaque.. long time it looked sad, with lots of rain etc... but now, two days before christmas eve we got a nice breeze for the 5,0, which seems to be the start of a longer wind period.... thanks santa in advance !!!!!

Comment…

Last night I got a prompt comment about yesterday´s Blog entry … the weather seems to stabilize …. Etc…. Forget all about that ! Hard Rain hammered onto the Roof of our house, hardly let us sleep and a River found its way right behind the house… Impressive, but actually now the Island has had more than enough rain for the next couple of months… If it keeps on raining my hope is that next time it comes a bit more vertically, faded away by the wind…..

Waiting for the first small breeze...

After hard rain last week, finally the weather seems to stabilize, only the wind refuses to visit El Yaque, which hopefully changes soon !! At least we can enjoy warm caribbean nights and sweet sunsets again...

All rain is gone, sun has dried most..

The big rain is gone and sun has dried almost everything by now. question is, what about the wind ?? might it come now, finally ?? Some people are waiting already pretty long to hit the water... which at the venezuelan Mainland seems to be possible at the moment.. At most big lakes and some coasts the guys went sailing with their five meter sails every day.... so hopefully it all starts here as well asap !!!!!

Under, in or on the water…

Under the water actually is nice, when you´re scuba diving and not under huge black clowds, dropping massive rainshowers onto you. In the water is something I usually like as well, sitting on my surfboard, waiting for the next nice set of waves and not in my house. On the water sailing is something I really like, of course, but walking on the water in the house, garden, streets all the time ?

Yes, right, the rain hasn´t stopped yet and last night huge thunderstorms were hammering onto the Island of Margarita, rivers couldn´t hold the massive quantity of water and started to destroy houses, streets, taking cars, trees and whatever was in their way with them at almost the entire Island. Really bad night. At around midday the whole story was over, sun came out and cleaning could start. With the sun a small breeze found his way to El Yaque, good enough to forget the past hours a bit.

Actually the weather is not so unnormal as it seems. Rainy seasons sometimes stopps mid decembre instead of November and over night the weather changes completely to provide the wind and kitesurfers with wind and sun. If not, just put your little private submarine into the trunk and go for some shopping…….

yellow star....

my red skin says it´s true... sun was shining today... the whole day, without any rain.... might that be the big chage, might the real season start now ?? i guess none of you knows the right answer, do you ???? Actually i´m pretty busy at the moment and don´t really care about the weather.... but yes i would love to finally come back on the water.... even if work screams after me .....

thoughts of a green Island....

I haven´t talked to a green Island too much ultimately... but sure the Island of Margarita must be pretty happy at the moment.... Lots of rain brings tons of water to the now evergreen plants and forests, sweaping some of the not wanted animals away, no wind moving the poor trees and keeping the sand where it´s supposed to stay.....  must be nice to be the Island at the moment....

BUT AS WINDSURFER ?????????

back in Yaque.....

Finally I gave arrived in El Yaque, after a longer Trip this time...... and I must realize.. nothing has changed..... crazy traffic, lots of rain in November...... yes, something has changed.. I found less faces i know.. some friends preferred to Travel to Australia this winter.... not so bad neither... maybe even better... i´m pretty sure OZ got some more things to offer than a small Caribbean Island.... I hope we´ll get a good Season here... still not too many people found their way over the atlantic ocean and El Yaque seems to be pretty calm at the moment.... even if it´s tough to believe that this village can be somehow more relaxed......

next time i´ll provide you with fotos as well..... sorry.. just arrived..

El Yaque News......

One more day left before I´ll be back in El Yaque.... I´ve been checking wind and Swell Forecasts already the last week and getting nervous... it´s some time now that I haven´t been on the water and just can´t wait any longer...... seems like a proper Swell for some Surf Sessions might hit the north east coast of the Island.... Of course I´ll bring you all the latest News of the Freestyle Top Spot as soon as possible......

on the water, even if it´s frozen......

Today I´ve been back on the water.. only under different circumstances... finally the snow arrived and stayed...  it´s been long time that i haven´t seen natural snow, after that powder coming out of pipes in the Indoor Snowparcs...  Actually i was pretty happy to finally walk in the white powder, also because i´m one of the lucky persons which don´t need to drive today......

new profile.....

After my profiles in Myspace.com  -  Facebook.com   and also in Soulrider.com    now I also created another one in   Hi5......  hope you´ll like it... actually i lie the idea of finding friends whereever in the world, though the word friend might be right with only a few of them......

http://tombrendt.hi5.com

Snow and even more thoughts........

After three abstinent years of Snowboarding I felt it was more than about time to start a little search for Snow and Mountains. Pretty fast I found my Snowworld, grabbed my Stuff and only after a half hour drive I arrived..... not even five minutes later I was sitting in a Lift.. The good thing with a lift is that you don´t need to walk uphill and that you can watch the people underneath... lovely... actually i felt a bit strange and not only because of Shiers going backwards all the time (does that make any sense ?? ) and also not becuase of Adults out of control, crashing into small kids (maybe on purpose, the small Herminators were just better than their parents ), neither because it was snowing all the time or the pretty weird music.... i guess it was because something pretty important was missing... fresh air... yep, i found that Indoor Ski Parc close to Duesseldorf in Neuss..... actually nice to come back on the Board, and pretty impressive to see also all the After Ski Bars and Restaurants..... still doesn´t feel like an awsome Snowboard Trip but..... but for sure better than nothing

keepin´ a close eye on..............

I´m still waiting for wind and waves.. sitting in front of my desktop during some grey days... but always keeping an close eye on the wind and weather forecasts, especially because it´s on a few days left before i leave to the beautiful beaches of the word again to enjoy the wind and swell during the winter.....

Surgery for Gollito.......

Arriving at his home Margarita / El Yaque, Gollito had to do a surgery at his broken shoulder and will remain some mor edays in hospital before starting his rehab.... The Freestyle Worldchampion 2006 and 2008 damaged his shoulder in Brazil during one of his Training Sessions in Jericoacoara......

Storm...... maybe.......

Stormy coasts, super strong winds, some proper waves.... combined with some beautiful Beaches and using a Shorty only..... yep, that´s what I´m dreaming of at the moment, sitting in the cold... The only storm is the one passing by my brain already for a couple of days... brainstorming over a lot of things... and so i´m happy that some of those might out pretty well in 2009, as we got the Fanatic Boarder Centers as well as Partners for our windsurflabor.de Clinic schedule..... great... so now i need to work out my cells a bit more.....

the windsurfing passport.....

I´m still in germany, unluckily only thinking about my sport windsurfing... but soon i´ll be back on the water... while sitting in front of my desktop... planning our www.windsurflabor.de events, creating groups for Event Publications in Facebook, Myspace, Hi5 etc... I got a new Windsurfing Passport from soulrider.com check it out you too !!

a short trip into the past.....

a short trip into the past, when we went to an Icehockey Game of the German DEL, the 1st class hockey... kind of emotional sometimes sitting at a seat in the huge Kölnarena, even more remembering my past as Referee in this league and also in this stadium... a lot has changed since I´ve stopped, at least most of the names I didn´t know anymore.... but the sport is still the same and still one of my favourites... just great action, speed and technique... ....

loss of UV light and the invisible man.....

It´s getting dark in Germany, some days with very few UV light hitting our part of Germany and it seems like some people are already suffering by the missing sun..... no answers to my hello´s, aggressive driving on the streets, people don´t talk... many times i felt already like being invisible.... pretty strange... though i´m on my way back into the sun, i really hope that also the north of europe will get some sunlight.... pretty strange to see so few people smiling........

back to sylt... than into the warm....

before we leave to southamerica, into the warm weather and right for the windy period... i went back to sylt... at least on my desktop to create my PWA Sylt 2008 Galery for you... it´s now online in www.tom-brendt-foto.de and here :

changes in El Yaque....

After some problems in El Yaque, still one of the Top winter Windsurf Spots, the whole village has been cleaned for a quieter season than the one before. All Hotels, Centres, Locals and even tourists took care of the El Yaque cleaning.
As well some new Hotels and Posadas have opened their doors.... I just put them online in my new El Yaque Travel site plus the big MAP as Hotel and Center overview ......

El Yaque Travel Site

sitting in germany, working on my videos...

I´m still sitting in cold and windless germany, waiting for my next Trip and being back on the water. meanwhile i´m working on some new video clips and uploading some of my latest Clips... my new site at myvideo.de needs to be fed.. :-)

Tom Brendt Video in Myvideo.de

welcome to el yaque....

this year i will be more into my travel help for el yaque again... i´ve just put our latest and newest hotels and posadas online, so if you need some help finding rooms, transfers, equipment etc. in El yaque you are more than welcome to visit my travel site....

TB Travel

typical germany..

After travelling the whole summer, now we are still in rainy and already cold germany, with some trips through pretty typical Germany.... it´s also really nice but we can´t wait any longer for the next days on the water...

going worldwide .... coaching...

I´m pretty happy to find more and more partners for the Events in 2009... so the Windsurflabor will open his doors in more and more countries and destinations... great....

Check out the new features on windsurflabor.de... we also get more and more dates fixed.... new now also the video clip about past Clinics with the Windsurflabor Team..

www.windsurflabor.de

cold, stormy, succesful and beautiful SYLT 2008

It was a very special Worldcup at Sylt this year... not only that once again the Worldchampions in Slalom, Freestyle and Wave were announced, also the always changing weather and wind conditions with pretty low airtemperatures made the contest interesting and really hard for all competitors... the event was crowned by unbelievable Wave and Wind for the finals of the Wave event and the Night Session... 25 years worldcup Sylt and we hope there will be many more years....

one more day to sylt...

only one more day left before i finally go to sylt for the last PWA Event in 2008.... can´t wait and less watching the forecast which predicts some sick conditions for the end of the week... there might be some serious wave action again at the 2008 PWA Sylt worldcup... and there is also still the Freestyle decision to be made.. could be a pretty radical freestyle as well :-)

maybe i´ll see some of you there... would be nice....... if not, i´ll keep you updated...

The new Windsurflaboratory.....

After some work i could finally finish the new Clinic website for the Windsurflaboratory, with a lot of new features, the new schedule for 2009 and much more....

www.windsurflabor.de

what about Tarifa 2008

For the second time we just came back from Tarifa in 2008, though the wind wasn´t what we had expected, actually much worse, but still tarifa is always worth a report and a foto galery... check it out here ....

Tarifa 2008 Report

New Fotowebsite.....

After some windless days / weeks, finally my new Foto Website is ready !!! new galeries and infos about Fotoshoots etc.....

www.tom-brendt-foto.de

The new WET Shop Tarifa....

Today we went to visit the new WET Shop in TArifa.... JAime Herraiz and Eduardo Bellini just opened the Shop in August.... best North and Fanatic Gear plus ION Wetsuits..... afterwards we went for a Windsurf Session in front of Tarifa....

Warm Up for Levante ??

Hopefully my session today with the new 5,4 Duke was the warm up for the Levante days which should come in the next days.. though the forecast once again dropped one day before the Levante really arrived.... we hope and see....

no wind, no swell.... getting bored

still no wind and no swell... we´re still waiting for the next weekend... hopefully we get some levante than.... if not it´s getting really boring at the moment.... even the feria in tarifa can´t change our mood.... so better the levante will come !!! ;-)

Yep. finally a Levante day...

After a week of waiting today we finally got our first Levante Day... we started in the early morning, with still gusty winds fpr the 5,0... after midday the wind went up for the 3,7 and some small ramps were building up.... finally !!! though the whole thing seems to be over tomorrow... but there is hope the levante might be back til the next weekend....

Levante what....???

Another day driving from Tarifa City to Rio Jara, Arte Vida, Hurricane, Las Dunas and the same way back... let´s say 35 times, at least that´s how it felt today, when we were searching for a spot which might have enough poniente wind for us to at least come a little on the water.... result : zero.... only some kitesurfers spent their day with their Kites in the Air for a couple of hours..... at the beach.... ah, and there was that other wind i hardly remember : Levante... now it´s really long long time ago that i used my 3,7 at one of europes windiest places.... but there is still hope for improvement.....

touristic Tarifa.....

Another day in Tarifa / Spain and still we got no wind at all..... pretty bad luck we had this year so far in southern spain.... already during our stay in may / june we were waiting and waiting for wind.... and now we continue doing the same and get to know the touristic Tarifa, sunbathing people, crowded city.... hopefully we will get a bit wind.....

My report and fotos to the mission event....

I´m still impressed by all we´ve just seen in Holland, the mission event at the brouwersdam same as the trip afterwards... i´ve put a whole report online with fotos etc.

Holland Trip and Mission Event Report

Back from Mission Event in Holland - great !!!

We just came back from a short Holland Trip, including the 5th Mission Event at the Brouwersdam. It has been a really great Event with more than 330 Competitors, Big Parties and Tombolas and a lot of fun and even more fanatic Windsurf enthusiastic. i´m pretty sure that more of those events would push the Windsurf Sport into another Level. It was great to see soo many Kids and Ladies windsurfing there.... Thanx to the Organisation for their Invitation !!! If you want to see more about the Event go to www.the-mission.eu